Its not alarming at all. Its reassuring and amusing. Fox News keeps asking guests their take on the reason the GOP lost. Obama's 'ground game', ability to get out the vote, and negative campaigning are cited as the most prominent reasons. Some acknowledgement is given to changing demographics but there is no acceptance that the Republican message needs to change. In fact most say that there is nothing wrong with it. That's reassuring because it means they are in denial. If they only work on improving their ground game next time they might be surprised that the same will happen again. The changing demographics means that their message, which is one of tradition and appeals to a core of old white Christian men, needs to change too.

There are three main reasons Romney lost to a president presiding over one of the worst economies ever. These are not the only reasons, but social issues, immigration, and the loss of important constitutional protections are “base” issues appealing to the “broken glass” voters in each respective party. Less ideological voters do not perceive vast differences between these two candidates, and independent voters probably even less so. All the chatter about demographics and lack of moderation happens to each party after a loss. It’s ridiculous to think that either party will pull base voters from the other. Romney was correct when he noted the 47% that will never vote for him or any Republican, and the same holds true for Democrats. While the “Main Stream” media has been despicably partisan, Romney never developed a message to adequately address the economy and he probably couldn’t garner the trust of an important part of the Republican base. The “getable” votes for Romney were never his due to three significant reasons.
First, above all, Wall Street is doing well. As the biggest group of contributors to both candidates and their parties, they must and will be served. People doing well in this economy see the very good returns for the last couple of years as a reflection of a recovering economy, at least for big business. Even if people believe that Romney is the one that represents this group, it’s also obvious that Obama has not hurt them either. It is tough to make the case that the economy is doing poorly overall, when Wall Street is doing so well. This provides comfort for the “Wall Streeters” and evidence for the “Occupiers.”
Second, the results of the housing crash have affected the economy for most people and it has yet to be adequately addressed. The American dream of owning a home has supported an economy that heavily depends on consumer spending for growth and jobs. Nearly everyone in both parties supported the bailout of banks and Wall Street to “save” the economy, but argued about saving Main Street. While Obama has been ineffective addressing this problem, most see that his heart in the right place. Romney has ignored this issue or taken the “let them go bankrupt” (same as Detroit) approach. There are millions of home owners paying “underwater” mortgages, trying to do the right thing, and waiting for the other “shoe to drop” when interest rates start rising. Much of this group of people is the Republican base and they are being left to the mercy of the big banks. I saw my first “Republicans for Obama” bumper sticker on Election Day.
Third, while much of the Democratic base sees Christianity, indeed any religion as a cult, Romney’s religion is seen as a cult by a chunk of the Republican base. All the numbers are not in yet, but point to a lower turnout in this election than in 2008. It appears true for Democrats, but even truer for Republicans and Independents. Obama won by 2-3, 000,000 votes, while it appears nearly 6,000,000 potential Republican voters sat this one out.

I am a Virginia woman. This state's flirtation with 'state-mandated transvaginal probes' sickens me. I voted Democratic so that, now and forever, every politician will wince, shrink, and cringe at the thought of meddling with 'ladyparts'. Putting anything 'down there' gets them a swift bite and a bloody stump, and they should remember that.

"Statistical margin for error" has a very specific meaning within statistics. It is largely dependent on the sample size relative to the population under review. On election day the sample size equals the population so there is ZERO "statistical margin for error".

In short: 2% more voting Americans prefer Obama to Romney. That is a fact, not a statistical approximation.

Good point of clarification, A-G. I laugh so hard! Just like the term "outlier" is creeping into the language without the user knowing anything about what "outlier" means in statistics. One is tempted to surmise the trait is prototypic of 2012 non-Lincolnian Republicanism - namely stunning ignorance across the board without the ignorant person having any awareness he/she is ignorant. But I don't think it is. The 2012 election result spoke and there was no statistical margin of error. :)

You missed something there, smart guy. The sample size is those that actually vote, which is a sample of the entire population eligible to vote. Thus, if the vote is intended to represent the will of the entire population eligible to vote, those actually voting represent the sample size, and there is a margin of error built into that.

The sampling method in this case being the voting process.

So, this is an approximation of the "will of the people" (or however else you want to call it).

I am glad when you look in the mirror, you are smarter than everyboday else and everybody else is dumber than you. That probalby is what matters in the end for you. Glad you found the that crucial image. Have a great day and a great life! No further comments from me. You are welcome to have the last word absolutely. :)

Did you read my post? I said the exact opposite. You said that you laugh at others for being what you consider stupid. I was being sarcastic. I've never thought I'm smarter than anyone. I simply did not misuse the term "statistical margin of error."

Just suck it up... statistical margins of error exist in elections, and you shouldn't think people are stupid for using that term.

A-G and I were alluding to the technical meaning of terms in formal Statistics. My knowledge there is a PhD dissertation using Advanced Statistical Method and Reserach Design for testing my hypothesis. All 3 members in my Dissertation Committee thought highly of my dissertation, one of them calling it "phenomenal". If you don't like what A-G and I were sharing, I am sorry.
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On the part you feel I didn't read your post closely enough, I read it again and concede I might have overreacted. I suppose in the aftermath of a Democratic Presidential win, enough people are very upset, and all of us are a little sensitive. None of us, though, should begin to hurl vitriol and innuendos at the other as if our lives depend on that exercise.
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I agree - I shouldn't think people are stupid for using terms that have migrated from technical to quasi-technical usage. That is what we all have to tolerate often on these TE blogs. I, for one, know zilch about quantum physics and may have a time or two borrowed terms from that field without intending (indeed knowing) their technical meanings.
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Let's all behave in a more civilized manner and make TE blogging a more pleasant experience. Life is too short to act as if it is not.

On a slightly different note, I can't believe (actually I can -:)because your lens I had judged to be not distorted by colored tinting but rather reversible misinformation) you returned to give me this compliment after the harsh comment I wrote to you on another blog regarding what the two APA's say about homosexuality. I did not mince words.

I appreciate your graciousness. Isn't it nice that people do not have prejudices about all things under the sun? In 2012, the fad among a few extreme GOP is Big Bird Bashing. I hope that too shall pass even as GaGa will pass, as KaKa always does or the bowel will need resection. :)

There is something bizarre going on in the electorate when we're in the middle of an economic nightmare and we're at war, yet the issues voters are most riled up about are sexism, gay marriage and subliminal racism.

Exit polls showed that a majority considered the economy to be issue #1, but they also considered George W. Bush to be more responsible for the state of the economy than Obama. So it WAS a vote on the economy… just not the way you might have wanted.

My Congressional district not only went 60% for Obama this election, but it also elected its first Democratic Representative since the 1970s. The fault was neither Romney's nor that of incumbent Congressman. The problem was that for an increasing number of voters, the Republican Party stands for extremism. They don't think of Jeb Bush or Chris Christie when they think of the GOP. They think of Trump and Cain and Bachmann and Fox and Akin and Palin.

And Richard Murdoch, and the Moral Majority, Family Blah Blah Council, and many, many others in the recent past. I wasn't thrilled with GHW, but at least he was intelligent. Not so much for a lot of the GOP today.

So I live in a very red state and decided to tune in for some rightwing local talk radio. Surprisingly thetalk show host was speaking candidly about their party's make-up saying their rhetoric and lack of vision on immigration was making them extinct. He had black republican on the show saying he was voting Obama because he felt un-wanted by the party. All of this sounded great until he started taking callers who were completely delusional bubble dwellers. They all agreed that if voting for "America " doesn't win elections then there's something with the people not their ideas which similar to what Rush said ealier. They were also rallying around reverse racism saying if white people voted 90-10 for the white guy they would be called racist but black people did and they aren't being criticised. This argument is retarded. Since 1988 democrats have received at least 90% of the black votein every election this jumped slightly but is similar to Clinton's numbers. This is an argument they don't want to start because you could make argument the other way 60% was the highest number of white men to vote for the Republican candidate since1988 66% is what they will get this year and the population of this group is much higher

Sometimes black voters clearly are influenced by skin color. Hillary Clinton had the widespread support of the black community entering the 2008 primaries, but then lost nearly all those voters to Barack Obama. It's pretty clear that skin tone governed that decision.

On the other hand, Rahm Emmanuel was elected Mayor of Chicago while winning nearly every white vote, and about half the black vote. So one could make the opposite argument there, that whites voted on color and blacks voted on who they thought was the best candidate.

It's more complex than that. Obama won Iowa in 2008. Which is full of white people. And black people thinking along the strategic lines "there's no way white people in the midwest will ever elect a black man" turned around and took a delighted second look at what abruptly became a pair of appealing options.

" But for some reason the people who have spent the past few years lashing out against women, and Hispanics, and gays, and non-Christians, and poor people, all seem to come from the Republican party."

Oh boy. Lol. Have you ever asked a black, Democratic voting preacher about women's or gay rights? Or, for that matter, a white, union, Democratic voting factory worker? Have you ever asked a Hispanic what he thinks about black people (especially after a few shots of vodka)?

The media has constructed this politically correct narrative of "stupid things white people say", and sure enough, Republicans get their share. But if you drop the PC thing, you'll see that there's plenty of stupid all around.

Oh, but they do. I don't really watch Fox much, but I do check out conservative blogs etc, and they play 'gotcha' with Democrats quite often. It just rarely makes it to mainstream - there's little interest in that.

The difference may be that Democratic politicians do not feel compelled to pander to the bigotry that some of their constituents exhibit. So, while you can find bigots in both parties (and among independents, just to be fair), finding them in prominent political positions is characteristic of one party, but not the other these days.

Every party needs a scapegoat to make their constituents feel like victims - that gets votes and fires up the base. Democratic party has chosen smartly in this respect and demonizes politically correct villains - the rich and the corporations. It is socially acceptable (and even expected) to say bad things about them. It is also puzzling because overall, Democrats are richer than Republicans, and have higher income inequality, but anyway.. Politics is not about money.

Republicans failed to move with the times, and stuck with the old villains - gays and immigrants. Since politically correct villains are taken by the opposition, it's tough to find new ones that'd be socially acceptable.

It probably would have been sufficient to just run ads borrowed from the Republican primaries, where his opponenets were painting Romney that way.

Otherwise, in the only races that I noticed where the outcome was ever in doubt, most of the places where Democrats won were where the Republican candidate shot himself in the foot. (Akin comes to mind.)

Not to say that the Democrats didn't run negative ads, because of course they did. Just that I don't think that they needed to do so in order to get the outcome that they actually got. If their only negative ads were those produced for the Republican primaries, or those which simply featured Republican candidates saying things that caused them problems ("47%", "legitimate rape"), nothing more would have been required.

I think I can see a few parrelels with the conservatives in the UK after loosing power in 1997.

Rather than facing the fact that labour had effectively captured the centre gound and adjusting their polices accordingly, they lurched rather to the right and then were amazed at loosing two further elcetions.

It took david Camerons attempts at rebrandeding the party to reassure the public that the Tories were no longer the nasty party.

Might be some useful lessons there. If the sensible, pro business republicans can pull the party away from its extremes it might have a future. Otherwise it will be looking at a very similar result in 2016.

China's rule by bureaucracy has lasted pretty much unchanged for two thousand years. The rulers have legitimacy because they have demonstrated their ability through performance in examinations to enter the bureaucracy and their subsequent performance in the job. Democracy, from ancient Greece to the present, has rarely managed more than a couple of hundred years before it is destroyed by conflict between vested interests. Welcome to the future.

Well no actually, China's rule by bureaucracy has led to stifling stagnation (as in the 19th century, and disastrously, during the Maoist era). The only way for China to develop, was to abruptly change course during the Deng Xiaoping era, ironically by copying Market Economics from the West. And that's the point, Bureaucracies are not very inventive and often stifle innovation.

I can't believe you sell us China as stability sign in two thousand years history, just for your memory i'll take some historic events, the cultural revolution in 1960, the revolution of the kuomingtang, the boxer revolution, the mongolian invasion with kublai khan taking the empire, the war in the ascensión of ming dinasty to the power, the fall of song dinasty. there is a lot if you want to know about it.

Yes, the Reublican party identified with a too narrow base, but I still think that identity base politics is too overblown. What difference is it going to make to a male or female, white, black, hispanic, gay straight etc etc if you still have billions of dollars national debt, which, let's face it, affects everyone.

It looks like racial and gender identity politics all the way down from here. It's no longer "It's the economy, stupid!" It's now "It's the sexism and racism, stupid!" The GOP is dead. You killed them. I killed them. We all killed them.

Wrong. The Repub vs. Dem war used to be a mild form of class warfare. The Repubs were for the rich, the Dems for the poor, in the popular imagination. It was easy to imagine a rich black voting Republican or a poor white voting Democrat.
But now, suddenly, The Repubs are The White Heterosexual Males and The Dems all the other races and genders and orientations.
American politics is no longer about policy. It's about gender and ethnicity identification.

Democrat vs. Republican has meant as many things as we have had elections. At one point long in the past, it meant north vs. south. It has been rich vs. poor, war vs. peace (different parties at different points), integration vs. segregation (ditto), etc. At present, it is as much young vs. old and evangelical vs. godless heathen as it is anything else. Gender and sexuality are but single aspects of the large and ever shifting puzzle of party idenfitication. Don't oversimplify things.

The Republican base believes whole-heartedly that they alone are the salvation of America. If then their message is correct - blame can only be cast on the messenger or the masses. They long for Reagan as the great passionate explainer of their truths.

Additionally the drive to the far right allows Republicans to deny any responsibility for the economic collapse at the end of Bush's term. By focusing on the lack of cuts by Bush, they restate the problem as if Bush was too Liberal - then pivot to Obama not fixing things fast enough. This allows their ideology to remain uncompromised.

The question is, why would they reject him?
For his failing to "stand up for America," by concluding a treaty with the USSR to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles?
For his attacks on hard work, by raising taxes multiple times?
For his speech celebrating the fact that a tax law change that he signed would mean that the poorest Americans would not have to pay Federal income taxes?

Any one of those would be anathema in today's party, of course. But I wonder which one would infuriate them the most?

Kennedy (the deceased president, not his relatives) is essentially never mentioned by Democratic candidates these days, while Reagan is mentioned all the time by Republican ones. So I find your post rather amusing.

Got it - Republicans should advocate full amnesty for all illegals and future unrestricted Hispo/Asian immigration and immediate citizenship/voting-status for any new arrivals - except maybe not if they are of Northern European origin; those clowns are responsible for everything that is wrong with America.

There are like 8 or 9 countries on the planet that are presently or historically dominated by ‘WASPs’, who comprise like 4-5% of the worlds population. There are like 200 countries extant now – so, that share is roughly correct.

Problem is, so many of the like 90% of the earth’s people who are ‘of color’ want to flee the places dominated by people just like themselves, and settle in the places run historically by the WASPs – just as our own Ashbird et.al. have done. The numbers are such that the effect will likely be to transform those destination-nations into the kind of places the immigrants run away from, and cause them to cease to be the kind of places folks run to.

When there’s no place left to go to escape your own kind, is that nirvana or hell?

Koreans and Japanese have their own solution to the dilemma. If they can ethically get away with it, why can’t others?

Catholics are and were always a minority compared to Protestants in the subject countries. That will change soon in the US as Catholic-Hispanics become dominant, and the US assumes the social and political culture of Latin America.

I am surprised to read my name specifically mentioned in your comment on the occasion a black man was elected to a second term as President of the United States, a country, in your words, "historically dominated by WASP's" following the eviction of the red-colored race by said WASP's (Italics mine).

As always, your opinion on the subject is of inestimable value to the entire human community.

On behalf of all the colored people in the "200 countires extant" at this time, I thank you.

Dude, I am as white Germanic protestant as they go... and I see one large problem with your thesis: All Northern European countries are far more Statist than even the democrats.

So if you believe in the superiority of the Northern man, instead of the multicultural anglo-saxon immigration based countries, you should probable join the Swedish Party of America:http://theswedishparty.org/

But you said the following:
"The numbers are such that the effect will likely be to transform those destination-nations into the kind of places the immigrants run away from, and cause them to cease to be the kind of places folks run to."

That seems to say that northern europeans choose better policies. My confusion stems from the fact that I know you to be republican, and republicans are generally a lot closer to flee-from countries than the flee-to.

That's good to know, 'cause it means no migrant should care if the US decides to throttle back to 0 on its intake of wandering souls, right? They can go to Russia. Odd really, why so many hundreds and thousands die in the attempt to invade Australia by boat when they really want to go to Russia, isn't it? I wonder if Ashbird thinks he's in Russia, or Bo's son and his Ferrari went to school in the US by mistake?

First, you know nothing of my personal views. I am not a Republican; in fact I am a TEA/OWS anti-status quo radical, who cares not a wit about which of those two takes the helm after the sword is put to the corrupt forces that dominate politics in the US.
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Hindus don't want to run away from India because it's not socialist enough. They want to escape the entire culture of India. They don't run to socialist Africa, do they? It's the existing culture of the US that is both the attraction and the item that will be lost when it becomes a Latin American cultural outpost; policy has nothing to do with it.

First of all, hot dog that we got Ashbird. China's loss, our gain. Educated and/or hard working immigrants are the reason our country stays vital while others go into decline. I'm with Ambrose Bierce from a century ago. Natives of rich countries try to protect the right to be compensated for their births while natives of poor countries protect the right to be compensated for contributing. God help us if our border goes quiet.

It is not for wise counsel and good government that brings people. I'll bet there's a bigger portion of immigrants in the despotisms and monarchies of the middle east than there ever will be in the U.S. Every Indian I've met here has a cousin in Dubai or Saudi.

All that I see has changed is that the "net" immigration casts through accessibility is now a global one. That changes whose best and brightest and hardest-working come to destination countries and over time it changes which countries are the destination countries. Have no fear, friend. As far as the United States manages to make itself no longer a destination for immigrants, it will cease to be a destination for immigrants.

"Have no fear, friend. As far as the United States manages to make itself no longer a destination for immigrants, it will cease to be a destination for immigrants." (Doug)

That's just the issue, Doug. It will no longer be the magnetic place it is because it will no longer have the cultural attributes of the society that created its magnetism. It will be an entirely different place - very probably a place not nearly so attractive as the one that must keep immigrants at bay with rifles; instead it will be a place of the culture that produces immigrants looking to flee.

I know that none of this registers as any sort of concern with you, and it actually has no impact on me, not being a resident myself. Still, it is very likely a massive and permanent change in everything that is 'America'. Considering the stakes, IMO it isn't something that should be undertaken (or allowed to just 'happen') without a lot of thought and debate. Koreans and Japanese know better than to do that - do we?

You know, I can respect this point of view. There's no way to tease out clearly how much of America's greatness was built on, say, the protestant work ethic and suspicion of the state versus our status as a place of trial with both rewards available to the successful and misfortune awaiting the unfit, unwilling or unlucky. I know you think it was more the latter and I think more the former.

But I'd just point out that the comparison countries you are using, Latin America , various Asian regimes, are a lot less different from the U.S. in terms of work ethic than they are in internal cultural control. People are leaving countries of less freedom and less northern-European culture to come to countries of greater freedom and more northern-European influence. I think it is just as risky to experiment with less liberty in service to more honkitude as it is to experiment with less gringodad in service of preserving liberty.

I think societies reflect the character of the individuals who comprise them. The implicit assumption of your take on it seems to me to be that new arrivals become 'just like us' in all material respects the moment they swim the river. I don't think that's the case - I think there is a dangerous probability that they bring the culture they flee with them. In low concentrations, this is not a material influence; when the numbers get massive so does the impact. About this -

"I think it is just as risky to experiment with less liberty in service to more honkitude as it is to experiment with less gringodad in service of preserving liberty."

If my view on it proves to be wrong, the error can always be undone - easily. If your approach is taken, and it proves to be harmful, it can never be undone - as Fiji demonstrates in sad eloquence.

Societies do reflect the character of the individuals that comprise them. But they also attract immigrants who have the same character traits. (Always assuming that they are willing to accept immigrants, of course.) If the individuals in a country value freedom and hard work, that is the kind of folks who will want to go there. Which naturally reinforces the character of their society.

And, if you look at it, that is exactly what has happened in the US. People do not, and never have, come here to loaf and be taken care of. They come here because they are stiffled in their native country, and because they are willing to work hard and want to be able to benefit from doing so.

Contra the usual Republican talking points, immigrants (including illegal immigrants) are among the hardest working people in the country. And the more of them we are willing to let in, the better for our society, as well as for our economy.

Ditto Jouris but also: I don't assume people become "just like us" the moment they cross the river but I think a third-plus generation American is pretty much just that, maybe with some atypical food preferences.

If you track my last name back you get to a Jew from the caucuses who settled in, of all places, central Illinois. His descendants are as American as that gets. Most of us are Christian. None, as far as I know, are tsarists. I hope he would be proud to know us, but I bet he wouldn't feel culturally alike. I agree with your first sentence but I don't think character is principally ethnic.

I think the problem with your last paragraph is this: If your view proves to be right it is already too late. It's been too late for generations. If America needs to be anglo to survive we are in our death throes already. Happily, I'm pretty sure you're wrong and you should hope I'm right.

In short, the book traces the economic success of Anglo-Saxon societies to the development of open political and economic systems, beginning with the Magna Carta.

Given that none of us presently commenting on TE had anything to do with the development of the Magna Carta, I believe that necessitates a bit of humility on all of our parts.

Regarding personal shots to demonize recent US immigrants (Ashbird, for one), the term for that is prejudice. Besides being bad form, using personal prejudices to make a political point is really, really lazy.

The bar for TE comments is, alas, higher than that.

Said politely: If you can't make your point without demonizing those who are different than you, you'll need to go back to the drawing board and work on how to make a logical, rational argument.

Thank you, Dia, for coming to my defense and the defense of others like me. The same thanks go to Doug, Jouris and JGradus who also provided similarly helpful feedback.

I believe MrRFox speaks a different language from the one we speak.

All languages trace back to a hardware and a software. We and MrRFox trace back to very different hardwares and softwares.

The difference is significant. Even among folks who follow and speak MrRFox’s language, none speak as fully as he. Not even close.

In my near three decades of living and working in America, I have not met a single white person who harbors or otherwise reveals a racial prejudice in the nature and severity of MrRFox’s. Let alone anyone who would preen himself on it.

I have thus come to the conclusion, and this after following many of MrRFox’s posts since I first took notice of him (he attacks not only Chinese, but Jews and other ethnic groups as well) that MrRFox is a petty nuisance and I should not take his racist remarks in a personal way.

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The following is written for your reading, Dia. Since this is a community board, other readers interested on the subject can share, including MrRFox. Permission for symmetry is implied when MrRFox used my name Ashbird to represent a group in speaking to another another commenter. Likewise I use MrRFox’s name here to represent a group in speaking to you.

You quipped under another DiA topic in reply to a comment of mine about a possible DSM diagnosis for the stunning phenomenon we witness in American election politics in the year 2012. I shall use the short hand for this phenomenon the FoxNewsTeaParty Republicanism of 2012.

I did not at the time reply to your quip. DSM seemed outside the purview of politics. The recent attack by innuendo on Ashbird et al in a comment MrRFox wrote squarely brings DSM to bear. The following is a response to your original quip.

The ever-present and ready, unprovoked, unrestrained, and sometimes bizarre bellicosity that inundates MrRFox postings, in my considered professional opinion, may be indicative of a subtype of depression known by the informal name of Agitated Depression (DSM’s nomenclature is a little too technical for me to use here without attaching at least 20 footnotes to avoid inaccuracies). Depression is a mood disorder. Many individuals suffering from moderate to severe depression exhibit obsessive rumination, persistent anger, a tendency to respond to events with angry outbursts or blaming others (hence the bellicosity) . For folks concomitantly diagnosable with an Axis II feature or features, a sad or dejected mood, generally suggestive of clinical depression, is sometimes absent or strenuously denied.

A person presenting with the disturbances of agitated depression is not a pleasant person to have around. For one, they sometimes act out. In very extreme cases where bellicosity is persistent and easily exacerbated, we see hostile and aggressive behaviors that are deliberately designed to hurt someone or ones. In real life, you read about such behaviors in the form of a man taking a gun and shooting a group of people he has identified to be the cause of all his life’s misery. (The figure Anders Behring Breivik comes to mind.) The “Group” may be workers in a tall building, or young campers on an island, or worshipers in a synagogue, or kids in a preschool. In blogs, you find the same behavior carried out in words. They take the form of attacks on the poor, or the rich, on the old, or the young, on the strong, or the feeble, on the guys, or the gals, or the gays, on the Indians, or the Chinese, or the Germans, or the French, or the Italians. The attacker finds something to attack in everything, including a fresh rose. There they call it, derogatorily, high-brow. Blanket negativism. Persistent anger. Obsessive rumination. Targeting of a convenient Group to blame for their life’s misery. The misery is intense because they are depressed.

Happy people do not pick fights. Miserable people do. Little is known what the character MrRFox’s misery is. All that is known is MrRFox is American but for some reason has not lived in America but instead some country in Asia in the last 20 years and still going. Why, to use MrRFox’s own oft-repeated and dramatic terminology, “fled from” America 20 years ago? What happened? Has he found nirvana in where he “fled to”, a nirvana among the very same colored people he despises?

Glad that those of us who are voices of reality make you feel better But it is pretty clear that MrFox has either minimal experience with non-Anglo Americans or exceptionally robust blinders.

I think, for example, of my own relatives. (And not the ones with cousins who have been in England since before the Conquest.) My father-in-law was in the 442 Regimental Combat Team in WW II. The whole family is as typically American is can be. (Including the one brother-in-law who is a far right Republican. "Even in the best families...")

In short, unless he happened to have photos, MrFox wouldn't notice, based on opinions and behaviors, that they are not the Anglos he thinks are mandatory to be good Americans. But as soon as he saw the epicantic folds, he would apparently write them off. Ditto most of the other non-Anglos I know.

I think Doug summed it up pretty well -- by the third (or even second) generation, the only difference between immigrants and everybody who has been here longer is the occasional ethnic food preference. (And even that is not much of an indicator. What can one say of someone of Japanese ancestry who is very fond of both Afghan and French cooking?)

I agree with your observation about MrFox, notwithstanding his claim that he lives among non-Anglos for the last 20 years, having "fled to" a "fled from" country, for reasons we shall never be privy to. And that's OK. I see MrFox as an extremely intelligent person but for some reason he needs his blinders.

I was very angry at first by the racial material I read on these blogs, primarily the hatred, not so much the ignorance that is at the base. We are all ignorant about things we are ignorant about. No one can possibly know everything there is to be known. But hatred is a different animal and a lot more ominous.

But then I stepped back and inquired why? What does hateful prejudice serve? Understandably there is a segment of this society that is feeling extremely threatened by immigrants. I think the threat is economical, the skin color maybe only incidental. If I were a billionaire and undertake the task of operating free kitchens in every city in America to every hungry person who walks in, I don't think people will dislike my color.

The irony in all this mix is white extremist Republicans paint immigrants, regardless where they are from, as freeloaders in this society. The fact is most of them are not that at all. Most immigrants from Asia and Latin America take the minimum wage jobs that no whites would stoop to take, jobs in janitorial services and sweat-shop garment manufacturing, and mom-and-pop restaurants. Not only do they work hard when they work, they work an unbelievable amount of overtime. Honest work for minimun-wage pay. I believe these are the people who comprise the majority. Of course there are bad apples in every race, every ethnic group. You cannot cherry-pick and say look there is a guy we caught smuggling dope - this is what all of you are, and who you are. That really is a bully's way of making an argument.

Then the next thing is as far as Chinese Americans are concerned, the vast vast majority of them are high achievers, high earners, high tax-bracket contributing memebers of the American society. I do not mean to boast (boast is something I very much loathe to do, but have been forced to do time and again as bullies pretend they don't get it unless you show them the facts. If you are overly modest with a bully, instead of appreciating the modesty, they take it as a sign of your conceding weakness), but my immediate circle of friends include 2 Noble Laureates in physics, 2 well-known authors, 3 National Academy of Science members, 5 Ivy League tenured professors, many lesser university professors, one University Chancellor, one former Cabinet member, numerous high power consultants in various fields. Oodles of physicians and surgeons. They are all Chinese. No one has less than a PhD or MD, or at the most minimum of minimun, an MBA). Are we "thugs" like MrFox et al would like the rest of America to believe? Bizarre.

When I was a disability evaluator for General Assistance in the city where I lived, I interviewed closed to 5000 cases in my case load. White folks coming in for welfare comprised the vast majority of my cases (about 65%), African Americans maybe 30%, the rest 5% were split between Hispanics and other minority groups such as Vietnamese and Pacific-Islanders. NOT ONE - read this - NOT ONE - was Chinese.

The vast majority of the whites were drug addicts - meth, ice, alcohol, polysubstance. Most of them were homeless. Many of them were Vietnam veterans, disabled, unschooled, unemployable.

What I need to tell you guys is there are down-and-out Chinese too, but when the whole world has forsaken them, there is almost always the open arms of a family, folks who'd give them a second chance. And here we had some nut (not MrFox now but the Mormon one who loudly proclaimed Christians are the only people on earth who know the values of hard work and family; indeed any human virtues at all were invented by white Anglo Christians. Everyone else on the face of the earth are booked on the train to hell because they don't have values) Things of that sort just turn your stomach over. Like a bad odor so bad it makes you vomit. You never even want to look at the guy again.

Anyway, on food. I myself refuse to cook Chinese food. It is too labor intensive and takes way too much time. That is what I like about America. In America, even a Chinese can refuse to cook.

"Why, to use MrRFox’s own oft-repeated and dramatic terminology, “fled from” America 20 years ago? What happened?" (Ash)

Since you ask, and since others care to speculate, I'll tell you -

I left the US the same week Bill Clinton took office. Any society that can knowingly select an alley cat like him to be its leader has like nothing in common with me. If one must be an alien in concept, why not be one in fact too? So, I guess you could say I gave up on the US; nothing that's happened in the past 20 years has caused me to regret that decision. Being a disenfranchised member of an ethnic 5%-minority has its virtues, as I suspect we both know from experience. About this, Bird -

"Happy people do not pick fights."

Quite. In a 'Harmonious Society', there are no disputes, no disagreements and no unpleasant confrontations of any sort – serious societal self-examination is avoided, at gunpoint if necessary. I've come clean with you now, Ash, so how about returning the favor? Why did you split from the place where harmony is the enforced doctrine of life?

From the time of the Pilgrims to just about now, American society has always been dominated by those of WASP-ethnicity. Prior waves of immigration did nothing to alter that. That situation of 200+ years is about to change - permanently. I suppose you are right - no one but a fool like me should consider this an event worthy of thought or - God Forbid - discussion.

In America, even a Chinese can refuse to cook.
Sorry, I had to smile. It put me in mind of my boss' teenage daughter saying to her: "Mom, we have no culture!"
Said mother was born in Pune, India. Came to the US at age 8 (her mother was getting a PhD in Math at Indiana.) Initially became a US citizen because it was an entrance requirement for the Peace Corps. (Really! How all-American is that!) If you see her, you think "South Asian" of course. But if you just talk on the phone, she sounds like any other Hoosier. At least any other Hoosier who is building her second company.
The world is just full of stereotypes (and many of them even had some kind of at least vague basis once upon a time -- if usually not quite the one implied). What makes America great is that anybody who decides to can walk away from the stereotype and do something totally different. And the number of things that will be so different as to even cause comment keeps shrinking.

Oh Ash, I mean really! You’ve made me feel worse than two-year-old toddler who had the misfortune to get tangled-up in the wheels of a Chinese delivery truck. Leave me wounded and ignored in the road like so much trash – and like so many souls did to that little girl – if it makes you feel good, but “chick lit”? That’s just plain cruel, buddy.

I am not unsympathetic to your puzzlement at my motives. In some places people sometimes do things and take actions based on something called ‘principle’. In most of the world that concept is as alien as ice hockey. My problem for being among the afflicted – don’t you worry about it.

jouris, This is reply to both 09:58 and 10:08. epicantic folds a junk heap? No way! You are so right about supposedly deep-seated "inherent differences". An inflamed appendix requires the same treatment regardless what it is wrapped in. Speaking of that, discoveries in neuroscience research in the last 2 decades have yielded more testable, usable data on how the mind works by finding out how the brain works. Really good stuff. ////I know what you mean by stereotypes. I believe that is the single most virulent barrier to peace, the big kind and the small kind. But some people need to hang on to stereotypes; without them, their whole world will implode, so they prefer to put explosives to others'. I agree with what you said about America, how anyone can walk away from stereotpyes. That is America's gift to the world and its strength. In terms of evolutionary survival, that is a key strength. The fit learns it.

Anyway, you get the idea. That's a boat-loan of non-WASP American talent.

While pondering the list, you may want to map out the mathematical intricacies of the following, i.e., "Sing, Sing, Sing", by Louis Prima, a non-Protestant Italian American born of Sicilian parents, and arranged by Benny Goodman, another famous non-Protestant American -

The following is a more comprehensive list of influential Asian-Americans, and includes Jerry Yang (co-founder of Yahoo!), Andrea Jung (CEO of Avon), Steve Chen (co-creator of YouTube), and (one of my personal favorites) Jeremy Lin of Harvard and the Houston Rockets.

Many of those with Goodman at the time were decidedly non-WASPs, and with very non-WASP names like Ziggy Elman, Murray McEachern, Hymie Schertzer, George Koenig, Art Rollini, Vido Musso, Allan Reuss, Harry Goodman, and Gene Krupa.

Given that you are busy mapping out the mathematics of the piece, here's a better version, with a famous piano piece found at about 9:28, which is another nod to Ash, who among things plays piano.

Dialectic18,
Thank you for your last post. Once again, you are very kind. You remind me of three American Peace Corps folk I met when I was a youth before I came to America for my post-secondary education. My older brother had written mom and me from US and to ask us to play host to his Peace Corps friends during their 5 day holiday away from an assignment at a true third world country in Asia. I was to be the interpreter for my mom as well as the tour guide.

My mom took the three Americans to dinner a few times, introducing them to what a Chinese banquet is. We gave them private chauffeured tours - views up the peak, sightseeing in the countryside, high-tea (I still remember they weren't impressed by cucumber sandwich) at the local five-star English hotel.

At the ferry terminal in one of the tours crossing the harbor, a long pedestrian line appeared. It was folks waiting in line for the rickshaw. (That was many years ago, possibly at the end of that same year, the last rickshaw service stopped).

We noticed 5 American in sailor uniforms in the line. When they got to the head of the line, it developed that they all wanted to get on the same rickshaw. (The rickshaw was designed to take one passenger only, a mother and an infant at most.) The rickshaw man gestured to the sailors to indicate he could only take one of them, not all 5. The sailors understood what he tried to say, as it was evident from the size of the seat of the rickshaw that not even a fat man can sit in it. The sailors insisted that the rickshaw man take them any way, all 5 of them. They jumped onto the rickshaw, one in the seat, one on the laps of the one in the seat, then one on each of the two tiny arms of the rickshaw, and finally one on the long pulling arms pulling the rickshaw, straddling them. They then motioned the rickshaw man to pull, the front sailor kicking the rickshaw man's back to urge him on, and the rest of them laughing, having a good time.

At this scene, all three of my brothers' Peace Corps friends excused themselves. In unison they marched up to the 5 sailors and asked them to stop what they were doing, sternly, but politely, speaking, of course, perfect American English.

It was at that moment I fell in love with the America I idealized. For some reason, the Peace Corps Americans stayed in my memory after all these years. For some reason, in 2012 the memory of the 5 sailors returned, fully, vividly, as if it were yesterday.

------------

I am a very junior student in piano playing. Nothing to brag about. Many Chinese parents insist on giving their children music lesson. It is a very common tradition. Most of those children grow up to play much better than I. You read about them winning International Music Competition all the time - Van Cliburn, Warsaw, Leeds...all the tops.

As to a list of Chinese achievers, it is probably not necessary to make them terribly high profile. There are, in any case, too many to list. The rich loathe flaunting their wealth, unless they are nouveau-riche.

You are so funny, Dia. I hope it is all right to laugh without offending XYZ and ABC and what else in between.

On the same note and in a different key, here’s a link to an example of things that are flying by the mentaltiy of FoxTea - Anti-education, anti-talents, anti-progress, anti-survival, anti-all under a Copernicus’ sun except the inexorable safekeeping of a blind-spotted view of the world, 360 degrees blind-spot in all things physical, societal, cultural, economic, political and spiritual. New Age Extremists taking protective refuge in Abraham Lincoln’s Party since the election of the first Black President of the United States (Do they fit the legal definition of “squatters”? I wonder), hiding behind the teachings of Christ, claiming at all time and in all instances to be his sole reader and interpreter, among at least 300 more others…. The world moves on in marching speed and steadfast surety while they sleep, not a healthful sleep, but a self-drugged stupor known as denial .

The kid is not alone in that part of the world. Nor is he terribly good, only good enough, as (I think my piano teacher would agree) he has got the basic techniques down with few bad habits and he is on his way to become very good in 10 more years, when it will be time to enter an international competition with other competitors like him, majority nowadays from China, Korea, and Japan. Increasingly few competitors now come from USA, a country that used to dominate, because now education and talent have both become bad words and anyone who wins anything who is not American must have won it by steroid or conspiracy (American Cycling and Baseball aside). Even winners trained in Julliard and Curtis (two of the top Music Conservatories in America) are predominantly Chinese, Korean, Japanese, European, or South American.

Btw, the child’s interpreter, likely his mom, is in Chinese culture the key educator in a child’s development. Unlike in Amerca, where in many families the parents are often too busy with other things. She would be devoted to her husband and her family, pursuing self-betterment for her entire family, not just herself. She is the cornerstone of her family’s strength. She would be aware and informed of a constantly evolving world outside the walls of her home. She would faithfully do her duties as a mother and wife, quietly, unobtrusively, effectively. So much for the profoundly crass misconstruction by master oafs of the “Western” variety (mostly so-called “Anglos” or self-claimed Anglos in Jerry Springer type shows and nowhere else. Surprisingly, an example is seen in the exchanges between two commenters about 40 comments ago). Her poise, her speech, her focus on her child, not herself, is the model of a Chinese Lady. ///// For simultaneous TE Johnson readers, the dialect spoken by the lady was Cantonese, and she skillfully guided some of the answers from the 5-year-old by mediating, in addition to interpreting, as the kid was in the beginning very anxious. That was another added nuance in case missed by viewers.

A good column.
The point at the top is the critical one.
It is not that all Republicans are racists.

It is merely that too many of them are, and it drives away everybody else. Racist code may have fired up the GOP right wing core, but it also gave people the determination to stand in line however long it took to prevent themselves from being disenfranchised.

There was a stoic heroism in those people who stood in line.
They were standing up for democracy itself.

... which is a fair bit more noble cause than standing up for the right of oil companies to destroy our planet, the right to prevent black and brown people from having medical insurance, or the right to harass women outside abortion clinics.

I read the Economist pretty regularly, and in all their coverage of the election (and indeed in coverage of US politics before then), I have never come across a genuinely racist policy or opinion from the American Right.

I have many times come across policies which are portrayed as racist by the Left even though they aren't.

the fact is that-- all of them would not want their sisters to marry non-Whites

The trouble with this thesis is that it would be the height of hypocracy, for those of us Republicans who are in interracial marriages ourselves, to object to our sisters (or our daughters, for that matter) doing the same. There is rather more diversity among Republicans than you may realize. Although, admittedly, the folks with the attitude you cite do have a far higher profile than we do.

This is one of the reasons many people felt Romney could make it: by the standards of twenty years ago he would have.

African-Americans are 13% of the vote and Obama got 90% of it.

Hispanics are 10% of the vote (and growing rapidly, since they are 16% of the population) and 70% voted for Obama.

A couple of decades ago political divisions and voter´s choices came from policy and personality differences between various candidates at a number of separate levels of government.Healthy voting across party lines, attention to issues, civility and social cohesion at the political level were the virtuous -circle end result.

Roger Ailes during the Reagan years opened the Pandora´s box of bringing European traditional politics(old fashioned in Europe itself by now) into America:party affiliation based on cultural, group identification, not fluid policy issues.The "we are a family of the Right since the time of Louis XVIII" kind of line. He was rewarded with leading that weapon of mental mass destruction called Fox News, financed by a guy who would have made the world a favor if he had stayed in Australia or at the very least confined his destructive impulses to the big-tits-on page-two London tabloids.

The problem with voting based on cultural affiliation is that the populace breaks down into irreconcilable camps.A cheap political tactic that settles down over time into a force that brings apart the body politic.

Race and xenophobia have been one of the few sorry legacies of the insular English culture in America.First ignoring and exterminating the Indians, prosecuting the Irish, marginalizing the Jews, the anti-German scare during WWI, discriminating the Italians, now Hispanics and always of course the Blacks.It is a legacy that can be disposed of or not, the choice is up to each person.

The Romans were pretty much race-blind.Seneca speaks of how it was natural to find Blacks in Nubia and blue-eyed blondes along the Rhine but it did not occur to him to make a value judgement on people´s capabilities based on personal appearance.Some Romans did make such judgement based on whether people lived on warm climates or colder ones, for example, but "race", if there is such a thing, was not an issue.Note that the first thing the XVI century Spanish conquistadors did was to get women from the Indian nobility and marry them. Cortez sent his firstborn son from such a union back to Spain, where he was knighted.To this day the building of the College for Noble Indian Women founded almost a century before the days of the Mayflower landing can be seen in front of Mexico City´s Central Park.

Traveling helps.No American who has spent time in Europe would fail to notice that the fact that the US Census asks people for their race is commented there with shock and derision, a bit as if it asked for skull characteristics according to a Phrenology table.

How dangerous is this "identity politics"? In my opinion it could be very dangerous, because it coincides with a growing economic and opportunity divide.When the bottom 20% of the people earn 3% of the income while the top 20 make 51%, when the bottom 60% of the people own 4% of the wealth and the top 20% own 84%, and when the top 25% of households by income are 87% white yet only 11% Black PLUS Hispanic(who are 25% of the total population at last count) one gets the idea that the politics of identity groups and ethnic division are pouring salt where the best antibiotics are urgently needed.

36% of all children today in elementary school in America are black or Hispanic.This is why that 73% that was twenty years ago 86% (and still is in the high-income brackets) can only move downwards, towards the low sixties, and that´s a mathematical, demographic fact.Yet today Blacks plus Hispanics together get only 10% of the nation´s PH.D.s-and a few of these are for foreign Black and Hispanic students.The median wealth of a Black household amounts to only 4% of that of a White household.A median Hispanic household owns 6% of what a White household does.

Such sobering numbers may as well lead to the crafting of a new bipartisan narrative of inclusion and a pact to erase the race factor. Hispanics in Texas voted 59% for Obama, not 70%, for example.There are ways to do it.A Colin Powell type of figure on the Republican ticket would have done wonders for inclusive democracy in America.

What can not be sustained is a system by which 90% of all Blacks always vote Democratic, or 60% of Oklahomans always vote Republican.If the same mistake the GOP made with Blacks is repeated with Hispanics, America could be headed in a terrible direction.

And that direction would be the institution of a pretense of democracy while the top 20% enjoy unparalleled perks and America as a whole declines slowly as it becomes a XXI century version of early XX century Argentina.When the bottom 20% of your voters make only 3% (and heading to 2%) of the income it is very easy for a politician to buy their vote on the cheap and manipulate them.
When people are permanently divided in cultural war camps it is easy to distract them away from tackling issues of real importance, and manipulate them into supporting candidates who, in spite of being part of their "tribe", will put in place policies that will hurt their very interests.

The fact that Romney gathered 66% of the white men vote is terribly worrying when you realize that his record the only time he held public office (in Massachusetts) was so mediocre he lost his home state by over a twenty point margin.He reneged from his only accomplishment, Romneycare. His foreign policy team was filled with people for whom the only mistake made in Iraq was not to have persisted in occupying it for the next forty years.His stated economic policy was a few leaps beyond Voodoo Economics: I-want-to-be-fooled Economics.

And yet he got that 66%, a vote based on identity and affinity, not on the substance of his policy proposals.

It is up to the top heads in both parties to get together and invent a new narrative, based on inclusiveness, issues based cross-party voting, and elimination of culture wars group-building and utilization, or Democracy will be doomed far sooner than we think.And it is up to them, because if both parties persist on their dirty tactics the electorate will have to march along towards the precipice.

Republicans and Democrats are the only two bands playing in town; some people who don´t like the music can choose not to dance and go home, but most people will just be compelled to stay never mind what´s being played is a dance macabre.

but I think you would be naive in believing that race is not an issue in Europe and somehow they would be shocked if it was presented as one at the ballot box. Visit the UK and ask white working class British people what they think of immigrants (assuming they answer honestly).

Identity politics is inevitable whether it is based on class or race, what difference does that make. Is it dangerous. Not really, particularly in parliamentary systems where outright majorities are unlikely. It forces compromise and coalition building, ensuring that majorities do not trample on minorities.

In America all that needs to be done is for the GoP to recalibrate and adjust its stance to be more inclusive (which is easily done if they have the will to do it and accept the pill), then the character of the demos is less of an issue in determining election outcomes, and that is a great thing if they manage to do it which I appreciate is a big if.

Populations are diverse in many countries, not just in America, ensuring the majority cannot abuse their position through identity based politics is double edged sword, because it can also result in gridlock in multi-party systems, but that is a necessary evil.

The other problem with trying to define political affiliation based on race or ethnic group is that those groups are not fixed. In particular, there is a growing number of people who (like Obama) have parents in two different groups. Different races, different religions, different ethnic groups, etc. It's the melting pot on a very personal level. And if a political group won't adapt, it dies.

"It's the melting pot on a very personal level. And if a political group won't adapt, it dies."

That´s the hope and it has worked so far but the fear is that it may not be working anymore at sufficient speed.I remember that when Frank Carlucci came up to lead the NSC I thought that proved the melting pot had finally been cooked.

But now it seems as if parties are comfortable with the divide, differentiate and conquer system, the basic opposite of the melting pot.It is easier to manage demographic models year after year than to offer policy alternatives of substance, perhaps.

There is no "Irish" vote anymore to speak of, fortunately.But I feel uncomfortable with the fact that 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement era still 90% of blacks vote democratic and the South is solid red at every presidential election.It is unnatural.Sucks out the air we need to discuss real issues.

You know I know Latin America rather well.I see the imminent danger of the black narrative being repeated with Hispanics thanks to the incredible obtuseness of the Arpaggios of this world and their accomplices.

Captive vote constituencies and the fact that current and growing income inequality makes vote-inducing programs very affordable could in time lead to the establishment of many of the worst traits of traditional Latin American regimes in the USA.

A Damascus moment by the Republican Party on immigration right now would be a masterful move, but one of the many problems with identity politics is that you paint yourself into a corner all too often.

I think it's more possible than you suspect to get out of the corner on identity politics.

But unfortunately, the corner that the Republicans have painted ourselves into is that the party is defined, not based on policy or even identity, but on faith. You have to believe to be accepted. And because belief is what is important, apostacy is not allowed -- making change extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Which means that, even though I disagree with your analysis, I agree with your conclusion: getting out of that corner is not going to be quick or easy, if it is possible at all.